TWO OF ME

PROLOGUE

Camille was bipolar.

At least she was diagnosed bipolar according to the psychiatrist that she had to pay a rather large co-pay to. Her mother had made her call for the appointment before she started her freshman year in college in a couple days. Her symptoms had just been getting too much for her parents to take.

First there was the spending all the money and ringing up their charge cards. She would talk a mile a minute and never shut the fuck up. She slept all day and stayed up all night. She would be happy one minute, and moody the next minute. She talked a mile a minute. They found weed in her sock drawer.

And there was also she shit she was doing they didn't know about. The really reckless shit. Her sex drive was completely insatiable. She may go on a date with a guy just for posterities sake, to look like a good, normal girl, but chances were if he had a car he was gonna get laid in it.

She had also tried coke for the first time with her best friend Maddie at a graduation party last week. It was only one line—if that could even count.

The psychiatrist had been this good-looking guy in his thirties who had insisted Camille call him by his first name, Sam. This had made Camille feel doubly uncomfortable having to pour out her dirty secrets to this Adonis clone. Especially about how many guys she slept with. And how she seemed to have an insatiable urge to sleep with them.

Sam (she swore she could have seen a twinge of red creep up on his chiseled cheeks when she told him the number) said that during mania periods of bipolar, having a heightened sex drive was completely normal. He diagnosed Camille as being bipolar one, since she mostly had mania symptoms rather than depressive and prescribed some medication.

"Lithium and Celexa?"

Camille had the two prescriptions bottles in her hand. She had been studying them. She shifted her gaze from the bottles to the back of Maddie's head. Her friend was standing before a bookcase, standing on tiptoe, busily attempting to straighten books.

"Yes, Mads. Ones a mood stabilizer and the other is an antidepressant."

Maddie halted her task for a moment and returned to her regular height. She turned around and regarded Camille, her green eyes narrowed. "Whatever, Cam, I don't give a shit what they are. All I know is that we are going into our freshman year of college, for Chrissakes! I hope this means you don't have to give up drinking!"

Camille snorted and absentmindedly ran her fingers over a book that was in front over her. "You've got to be kidding me, Mads. It's not like my parents are my wardens. They don't know everything that happens. I just pretend like I take the pills."

Maddie had gone back to shelving books. She glanced over her shoulder and elicited a hearty laugh. "I sure hope your parents don't know everything that go on with their precious honor roll Cam. I mean the discovery of the weed like rocked their world. But if they find out that you did coke or even how many guys you sleep with…" She laughed. "I don't think they could take it."

Camille wrinkled her nose in consternation and began to twirl and strand of hair anxiously around her index finger. She felt the apprehension begin to bubble in her gut. "Mads, it's not like I wanted to…sleep with all those guys…I don't know…I can't describe it. It's like I have this switch on inside me that's always flipped on to be reckless. Anyway…" She motioned toward her friend. "I don't see you being miss prim and proper. Just because you work in a book store doesn't mean jack shit!"

Maddie laughed. She picked up a book as if to defend to shield herself. "You have me there, Cam, you have me there!"

Camille was suddenly taken by the book Maddie had chosen to pick up and shield herself. It was a little smaller than 8x11", and it was wrapped in a dusty, dark red leather, almost black. There was no title, but where the title was supposed to be, there was a double ouroboros, or a serpent eating its tail. The ouroboros was embossed on the cover.

"Mads, what is that book?" Camille asked, the excitement building in her voice for no apparent reason.

Maddie's jovial mood was deflated like a balloon being struck by a pin. She glanced down at the book she held. "Oh, I don't know, Cam. Probably some random book on UFOs or the occult. You know Mr. Wannamaker has so many weird books. Oh, did I tell you that Pete is having a party tomorrow…."

Maddie's voice droned into the background until Camille couldn't hear it anymore. She could only stare at the book that Maddie had set on the stack of books before her. She wondered what it's chartreuse leather would feel like under her finger tips.

Camille broke out of her thought. "Mads, I would love to stay, but I should probably get going. My parents have been keeping me on a super short leash and they probably want to know how my appointment with psychiatrist Sam went." She shoved her prescriptions in her pocket.

Maddie placed her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. "If you are sure you can't stay longer, Cam? Can you just give me one minute while I go pee? Then I'll be back to say bye."

For some weird reason, Maddie always had to use the bathroom first before she said her partings. Camille watched her blonde bob waver to the back of the bookstore where the tiny bathroom was. Her gaze then went to the crimson leather-bound book that was sitting out on the table in the open.

She wasn't sure why, but it felt like something was calling to her from that book; as though it was calling it's siren song in her ear. She walked over to the book and regarded it. She then placed her index and middle fingers lightly on the ouroboros emblem and caressed it. It was cold to the touch.

She heard the toilet flush.

Without a second though she picked the book up, placed it in her coat, and exited the store in a whisper.

It wasn't until a good while after dinner that Camille was able to be reunited with the book. Her parents wanted a lengthy run down of what had occurred at her psychiatrist appointment. She had given them the majority of what had occurred, she had just left out some key details (Sam the psychiatrist.)

When she did pull out the book, she was able to do to under the soft glow of her desk lamp. She allowed her fingers to play along the red leather, noting with pleasure the softness, contrasted with the hardness of the metal of the ouroboros.

This time, she allowed her fingers to open the book, and scroll through the yellowed pages. Words jumped out at her. Jack Kelly. Spot Conlon. Racetrack Higgins. Camille Cross. "I love you, Camille."

Wait, isn't that…

She tried to viciously flip back to where she had seen her name…but the pages seemed to be fling themselves at lightning speed.

…my name.

Her mind also seemed to be getting cloudy, heavy, black.

Like I have to sleep.

Her eyelids felt heavy and began to droop. She brought her head down into a cradled position on her desk over the book. Her mind evaporated, turned midnight ink.

And with that, she was gone.